Theory for what happened during the Well of Ascension’s previous cycle

[AleStaar he/him]

I have a theory about what was going on with Alendi, Kwaan, and Rashek. A lot of weird, big, and clever things were going on there.

We know from Secret History that Preservation "made it work" in the last cycle, by getting Rashek to Ascend and stop Alendi from releasing Ruin. However, we know from this WoB that Preservation chose Alendi to be the recipient of the Well's power… 16 years before it returned, but somehow a "bit older" than Vin being chosen at age 3. Though with the weird Snapping and the implication Vin was chosen at birth, it's possible early Sanderson didn't have timeline or Shardic planning stuff completely down.

However, the timing of Alendi is very weird. Preservation supposedly chose Alendi to wield the Well's power (if not the Mists and Shard), 16 years before it refilled. However, the timeline comes together to imply Alendi was at least in his 30s after going through a decade of leading armies, two years of Kwaan in exile, and a bunch of stuff about his hometown, Khlennium, and Terris. So at minimum, Preservation might've chose Alendi when he was at least 14.

We know from the story and many more WoBs that Vin was always Preservation's intended successor while Sazed was always his intended Hero of Ages. And since Allomancy wasn't a fundamental and known part of society, attuning Alendi with the Mists would've been more useless than Vin's attuning. So I doubt Preservation was making plays to make Alendi, Rashek, or Kwaan get the Shards.

Furthermore the weirdness behind Vin's Snapping seems to imply Preservation's future sight was capable of foreseeing Vin's role as the successor either when she was born, or during her mother's pregnancy. The latter, probably, considering Preservation would've known of Ruin carefully manipulating Vin's mom to have children with high ranking noblemen close to Allomantic bloodlines. So then Preservation might've acted by Snapping Vin during birth. That's not to say he can foresee such futures from birth/pregnancy for all people, but I think that's an important thing to note.

The final piece of weirdness is this WoB about Kwaan and Feruchemical copper. Sanderson confirmed photographic memory is real in the Cosmere, enhanced by magic. And that someone with a photographic memory would be immune from the degrading of memories that happens when you tap copper. So somehow Kwaan was the only Feruchemist with a photographic memory, who could tap copper without permanently losing his memories, and could memorize pages without using a coppermind.

My theory is that Kwaan's photographic memory was orchestrated by Preservation, through enhancing Kwaan's Cognitive aspect. I think Preservation intended to use Alendi as bait to lure in Ruin's plans. He intended to use Kwaan not only as a weapon to counter Ruin's alterations, but lure to get Rashek to hate Alendi and desire the Well's power. I think Preservation intended all along during that cycle not for Alendi to use the Well's power, but for Rashek to do it. But to get Rashek into position, he needed to use Alendi and a Feruchemist immune to Ruin's alterations.

I believe Preservation saw into Rashek's possible futures and foresaw the importance of him doing the following: an empire ruled by Allomancy jumpstarted by the lerasium beads, storage caverns to shield humanity from Ruin's apocalypse, hiding the atium in tons of metal. And perhaps most importantly, a tyrant that could set the successor, the atium Mistings, and the Terris rebel into motion.